"I must see which way the crowd is headed," he is reputed to have
said: "For I am their leader."
http://www.salon.com/tech/books/1999/11/04/new_optimism/
People who exercise violence in the pursuit of what they hold to be
just causes are alternately known as "terrorists" or "freedom
fighters".
They all share a few common characteristics:
1. A hard core of idealists adopt a cause (in most cases, the
freedom of a group of people). They base their claims on
history - real or hastily concocted, on a common heritage, on a
language shared by the members of the group and, most
important, on hate and contempt directed at an "enemy". The
latter is, almost invariably, the physical or cultural occupier
of space the idealists claim as their own.
2. The loyalties and alliances of these people shift effortlessly
as ever escalating means justify an ever shrinking cause. The
initial burst of grandiosity inherent in every such undertaking
gives way to cynical and bitter pragmatism as both enemy and
people tire of the conflict.
3. An inevitable result of the realpolitik of terrorism is the
collaboration with the less savoury elements of society.
Relegated to the fringes by the inexorable march of common
sense, the freedom fighters naturally gravitate towards like
minded non-conformists and outcasts.
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